Was Lord Turner right to call the UK banks socially useless?
Amid signs that the UK property sector is starting to pick up, yet liquidity is still very hard to come by in the mortgage sector, Lord Turner's comments describing UK banks as being "socially useless" have grabbed headlines all around the world. As we have covered in some of our earlier posts, this goes way beyond the brief of Lord Turner as chairman of the FSA although his comments have attracted growing support over the last 24 hours.
There is no doubt that the UK banking sector dominates the UK economy and ultimately dominates the lives of many in the UK. As consumer struggle to refinance their debts, corporate entities struggle to trade their way through the ongoing recession and the UK banks appear determined to retain what liquidity they have, at least for the time being, there is a feeling that UK banks are not "doing their bit".
When you consider that billions upon billions of pounds of UK taxpayers money has been poured into the system with very little return as of yet, perhaps now is the time the UK banks to step up to the mark?
Do you really believe that UK banks are socially useless?
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